bobtheguardian's Full Review: Guillemot 3D Prophet 4500, (64 MB) AGP Video Card
The Kyro II is a card designed for the budget gamer with some unique features to set it ahead of the pack.
-Features–
First, here are some specs:
-Kyro II GPU
-64 MB SDRAM
-128-bit Memory Interface
-175 MHz RAM clock speed & core clock speed
-AGP Bus
-Supports DirectX and OpenGL
The main feature that makes the Kyro II such a good card is it’s hidden surface removal. What it does is it efficiently renders only the visible polygons. Other cards render an entire scene including the polygons that you cannot see as they are blocked behind polygons that are closer to you. This allows the Kyro II to outperform other cards with higher clock speeds. Another feature is it’s internal true color. What the card does is it renders mostly in 32-bit color this means that you either get a display as close to 32 bit as possible if you are using 16 bit color, or that there is very little performance decrease if you are using 32 bit color. Other features include full-screen anti-aliasing (The card smooths out the “jaggies”), environmental bump mapping (used to simulate rough and bumpy textures) and DVD playback support.
-Installation and ease of use–
Installing the card is very simple, pop it into your AGP slot and install the drivers. I had no problems with the drivers, but remember to get the newest ones from Hercules’ website. Instructions were clear and provided in a number of languages. The only problem I have had with this card was when I installed a new stick of RAM into my motherboard. Windows wouldn’t load if I had both my new and old RAM sticks in together even though they were compatible and free from defect. The technician at the store told me it had to do with the way the video RAM was set up and it was only a Kyro II problem. After he re-installed windows everything worked fine.
–Performance–
Firstly, the Kyro depends heavily on your CPU speed as it has no on-board transform and lighting. This is good if you have a fast CPU as the CPU can process things faster than your video card and bad if you have a slower one. When I run 3D Mark 2001 SE I get about 1750 with my Duron 800 and 384 MB of RAM at 1024x768x32. Since this is just a benchmarking program I suggest reading the articles at tomshardware.com as they have many actual games tests. The Kyro II can beat most of the GeForce2s and runs all of my games very well in 1024x768x32 resolution. Unreal Tournament runs very smoothly as does Half-Life and F1 Racing Championship. In a non-game environment the card also runs very well and has presented no problems.
-Conclusion-
This card is a better choice than many of the GeForce 2s out there. The version I bought came bundled with MystIII, but the game didn't even work properly with the video card! Luckily after downloading the latest drivers and the Myst III patch everything worked fine. If Myst III is not you type of game, the OEM version is slightly cheaper. Obviously there are now better cards out since the KyroII is almost a year old, but once again, it is cheap and therefore may be for you.
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